History of Sanitation

HISTORY OF SANITATION 49 in which all the persons must have met before entering into the interior of the baths; and its locality, as well as other characteristic features of its fitting up, leave no room to doubt that it served as an undressing room. It does not appear that any general rule of construction was fol- lowed by the architects of antiquity with regard to the locality and temperature best adapted for a dressing room. The bathers were expected to take off their garments in the dressing room, not being permitted to enter the interior unless naked. The clothes were then delivered to a class of slaves whose duty it was to take charge of them. These men were notorious for dishonesty, and leagued with all the thieves of the city, so that they connived at the rob- beries they were placed there to prevent. To so great an extent were these robberies carried, that very severe laws were finally enacted making the crime of stealing from a bath a capital offence. To return to the chamber itself, it is vaulted and spacious, with stone seats along two sides of the wall and a step for the feet below, slightly raised from the floor. Holes can still be seen in the walls which might have served for pegs on which the garments were hung when taken off; for in a small provincial town like Pompeii, where a robbery committed in the bath could scarcely escape detection, there would be no necessity for slaves to take charge of them. The dressing room was lighted by a window closed with glass, and the walls and ceilings were ornamented with stucco mouldings and painted yellow. There are no less than six doors to this chamber: one leading to the entrance, E, another to the entrance, D, a third to the small room, n, a fourth to the furnaces, a fifth to the tepid apartment, and the sixth opened upon the cold baths, io. The bath, which is coated with white marble, is 12 feet 10 inches in diameter, about 3 feet deep and has two marble steps to facilitate the descent into it, and a seat surrounding it at a depth of 10 inches from the bottom, for the purpose of enabling the bathers to sit down and wash themselves. It is probable that many